We have a new government in Ontario after 15 years of the same party in power.  You know what that means? Change. Hold on to your seats folks – we are going to see legislative changes in healthcare in Ontario. Any time of change can be tough.  But a time of change is upon us… Read more »

There is a new resource that every healthcare organization in Ontario (and beyond) should know about. 21 Questions: Guidance for healthcare boards on what they should ask senior leaders about risk. I attended the Association for Family Health Teams of Ontario annual conference and one of the sessions featured presenters from HIROC who introduced this… Read more »

Calling all family health teams in Ontario.  Here’s something you should know! This blog was written by Maria McDonald from McDonald HR Law Did you know that section 4.1 of the standard family health team (FHT) funding agreement with the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC) requires FHTs to obtain written pre-approval from… Read more »

I was scrolling around on social media the other day and there was a challenge posed by Twitter: “Pick two words from your bio. It’s your next tattoo.” For me, that’s easy to answer. Anyone who has attended training with me knows my signature phrase, “it depends“. When my health care clients ask me questions,… Read more »

  Health law is a discipline that focuses on the legal issues in health care, on representing the interests of recipients of health services or health care providers or the health sector and its businesses and goods and service providers, or government and its policy makers. What I love about health law is that the… Read more »

I am often asked by health leaders what to do when police arrive and need information about patients. Police officers and police departments are important community partners for health care organizations. As citizens, we all rely on the police to protect us and enforce the laws.  It is vital to the success of all health… Read more »

I just found this freedom of information resource and thought others might not have known about it either. It is intended as a document for the general public to understand freedom of information laws in Ontario. It is also useful for provincial and municipal freedom of information and privacy co-ordinators. How wonderful! Thank you Ministry… Read more »

The Forward Email function should be used very carefully. Here’s why … As a lawyer, I get forwarded a lot of emails by my clients.  In those emails there are often long threads of internal email conversations within the team where they realize there is a legal question and I get retained to advise on an… Read more »

There is a new health privacy decision 75 of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. Bottom line for health care organizations: If a client has died, you have to be careful about the release of health records to the estate trustees under the will.  If the will appoints multiple estate trustees (executors) – you… Read more »

Decision 74 just released by the Information and Privacy Commissioner is another snooping case. My summary of all the IPC decisions is available here. A physician used a hospital’s electronic health record system to look at the records of a patient numerous times without authorization.  The physician was related to the patient by marriage and… Read more »